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Law school recruitment DVD wins award

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- An SIU School of Law recruitment DVD produced by WSIU Public Broadcasting’s David Kidd received industry-wide recognition recently at the Videographer Awards.

The DVD earned an Award of Excellence in the competition’s marketing category. Only 14 percent of the approximately 2,100 entries from throughout the United States earned the Award of Excellence designation.

Winners were selected from 166 categories in the areas of television production, video production and new media. The award is given to projects that judges “deemed were written, produced, shot and/or edited in an exceptional manner,” according to a news release on the awards.

Work on the DVD began during the summer 2005 and finished this spring. The documentary style DVD assists potential law school recruits when making informed decisions about the SIU School of Law. The DVD also is being used in faculty recruitment, and with potential employers looking to hire law school students and graduates.

The DVD features vignettes and segments on various programs within the law school, curriculum available to students, clinical programs, alumni interviews, information on the campus the region, and an interactive aerial tour. The DVD is different than similar marketing DVDs because there isn’t a narrator “telling you what to think,” Kidd said.

Students are “very savvy to being able to go out and find the information they are interested in,” he said. The DVD allows users to pull out the information they find interesting. It is useable on both computers and DVD players; Kidd estimates more than half of the students will view it on computers.

He credits Mike Ruiz, director of SIUC University Communications and former law school director of admissions, media and communications, and Alicia Ruiz, the law school’s director of communications and outreach, with the project. Access to faculty, students and alumni were key in the collaborative effort, he said.

Kidd did a “great job with the production and filming,” Alicia Ruiz said. The DVD is currently being encoded so the law school will be able to use segments on its Web site http://www.law.siu.edu/.

“I feel good that we used professionals here on campus and were able to collaborate with WSIU on this project,” she said.

Administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, the award is considered one of the most coveted in the video industry. Winning entries range from network news operations to local cable access programs, large production companies to freelance producers, and international advertising agencies to student producers.

Upcoming Events

Legally Blonde

2:00 PM - McLeod Theater: The CCA all Southern High School Theatre ProjectJuly 30–August 2Thursday – Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.Music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell BenjaminBook by Heather HachBased on the novel “Legally Blonde” by Amanda Brown and the 2001 film of the same name.Elle Woods discovers she is “all that” as she enters Harvard law school and successfully defends an exercise queen from a murder charge in this almost-illegally funny high-energy musical.This production is not performed by our professional company but by talented regional high school students as part of our annual partnership with Carbondale Community Arts’ All Southern High School Theatre Project.

Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) Open Lab

10:00 AM to 12:00 PM - Morris Library Computer Lab 174 Instructors with questions about completing their fall course setup on SIUOnline or third-party tool and textbook integrations, can receive help Aug. 5 from the Center for Teaching Excellence. A session will be from 10 a.m. to noon in Morris Library, Room 174. The open lab, with individual assistance from CTE staff, is available to answer any technical issues or Desire2Learn (D2L) questions. Pre-registration is not necessary.